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Michigan Statehead coach Mark Dantonio heads out of the tunnel before the Spartans game against Tulsa on Friday, August 30, 2019, at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing.(Photo: Nick King/Lansing State Journal)

LANSING – Michigan State University football coach Mark Dantonio on Friday said his decision to sever ties with a former employee in 2017 was not linked to an ex-player's sexual assault case.

“The fact that Mr. Blackwell’s contract was not renewed has nothing to do with Auston Robertson. Two years ago, I spoke at length about Auston Robertson when he was dismissed from the team in 2017," Dantonio said in a written statement. "Further, there have been multiple investigations into the program’s handling of sexual assaults, including Jones Day in 2017 and the NCAA in 2018, and they concluded that the program and myself committed no violations."

Dantonio had no other comment on Blackwell's lawsuit.

Curtis Blackwell sued the MSU coach after he didn't renew his contract

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Detroit native Curtis Blackwell, left, was hired by MSU football coach Mark Dantonio on Aug. 2, 2013. Blackwell served as the football program's director of college advancement and performance until May 2017.(Photo: State Journal file photo)

Blackwell left MSU in May 2017 after Dantonio let his contract expire. He filed a federal lawsuit last November against Dantonio, former MSU president Lou Anna Simon, former athletic director Mark Hollis and two members of the MSU Police, Detectives Chad Davis and Sam Miller, seeking damages for wrongful arrest and termination.

In a deposition related to his legal action, Blackwell said Dantonio and the university wanted to make it look like it was Blackwell's decision to bring Robertson to MSU during the investigation by Jones Day law firm, which the university hired to review how the football staff handled accusations of rape involving several football players.

The coach's statement came as his attorneys filed a motion asking a federal judge to limit what topics Blackwell's attorney can question Dantonio about during a deposition. Dantonio's attorneys want no questions about Robertson or Larry Nassar, the former MSU sports medicine doctor who was exposed as a sexual predator and accused by hundreds of women and girls of assaulting them during medical treatments.

Since Blackwell only needs to ask about why Dantonio didn't renew the contract, the coach’s attorneys say any deposition should need only three and a half hours. Blackwell's attorneys have asked for seven hours, the maximum allowed under federal rules. They also want freedom to question Dantonio about anything and have asked a judge to help pin down a date for the deposition.

“Dantonio has never sought, and does not now seek, to avoid giving deposition testimony in this case,” Thomas Keinbaum, the coach’s attorney, said in court filings. “Rather, he asks only that the court impose the reasonable limits that plaintiff’s counsel flatly refused to consider.”

Questions should focus on if Blackwell’s decision not to speak with investigators motivated Dantonio’s May 2017 decision to not extend the recruiting coordinator’s employment agreement, Kienbaum said.

“This is a very basic and narrow issue about a single employment decision by Dantonio,” Kienbaum said in his motion.

Tom Warnicke, Blackwell’s attorney, said he does not think limits on subject matter or time are appropriate and that Blackwell wants all the facts to come out.

“What happens in the dark always comes to light,” Warnicke said Friday.

Keinbaum, in the Friday filing, accused Blackwell’s attorneys of “improperly abusing the court’s discovery process to maximize disruption and inconvenience to Dantonio.”

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Attorney Mary Chartier, second from l., speaks on behalf of her client, former MSU football player Demetric Vance, left, pictured with teammates Donnie Corley and Josh King during sentencing in Ingham County Circuit Court Judge Rosemarie Aquilina's courtroom Wednesday, June 6, 2018. Also pictured are John Shea and Shannon Smith, right.(Photo: MATTHEW DAE SMITH/Lansing State Journal)

In a deal with the Ingham County Prosecutor's Office, they pleaded guilty to reduced charges of seduction and were sentenced to 36 months probation and ordered to undergo sex offender treatment.

According to the Jones Day report, Robertson told Blackwell about the assault on the day it occurred.

Auston Robertson had a criminal history before joining the team

A few months later, Robertson also was dismissed from the team after he was accused of raping a student and was charged with third-degree criminal sexual conduct in Ingham County. He pleaded guilty to assault with intent to commit a sex crime in November and is serving a prison sentence of three years and seven months.

Robertson had a criminal history before joining the football program, but signed with the team in 2016 after starting a court-ordered diversionary program. At the time, Dantonio said, “given all the information available to us, we believe Auston should be provided with an opportunity to begin his education and playing career at Michigan State.”